The push for a global, legally binding deal could not overcome national self-interest

Not even the journalists reporting from the Copenhagen summit on
climate change understand all the complex economic and technological
strategies for reducing the world's carbon footprint and averting
catastrophic global warming -- let alone the rest of us. There's cap
and trade, emissions trading schemes, carbon taxes, discount rates and
a phonebook of acronyms. But there is one equation which could be a
very easy sell to save the world: fewer people = fewer carbon
footprints.